How to buy term life insurance online?

Buying insurance is seen as time-consuming even cumbersome. So while individuals appreciate the importance of taking insurance, the formalities can be a put-off, making them postpone the decision.

Online saves the day

Thankfully, we are in an age where practically nothing need be time-consuming and cumbersome. The internet has taken care of that.

You can now browse insurance company websites and buy online term insurance plans, which is a popular and affordable form of insurance.

Why term life insurance plans

To revisit the attraction of term plan for individuals –online term plans offer the cheapest medium of availing life insurance where one can get a high life cover at a relatively low premium.

How the internet is spreading insurance

The internet has graduated from being a mere provider of information to a key distribution channel for service providers like insurance. It offers a fast, efficient, cost-effective and transparent mode of delivery.

While traditionally, insurance companies have relied on consultants, agents and brokers, in addition to their own in-house sales support, this has proved to be both expensive and inefficient.

The turnaround time in getting an individual insured is high and there is a burden to service the agent through regular commissions over the life of the policy.

The internet has helped insurance companies iron out both time and cost inefficiencies. They now engage insurance-seekers directly through company websites.

Insurance is ‘delivered’ seamlessly and since there is no agent involved, there is no commission to be paid.

This makes selling insurance cheaper and the individual benefits by paying a lower premium vis-à-vis a similar policy sold offline.

How to buy online term insurance plans

Buying the best term insurance plan in India online is a simple, streamlined experience that will make you wonder why it was not discovered earlier.

While the process of buying online term insurance varies across insurance companies, it broadly involves the following steps:

Log on to the company website for e.g. log on to www.hdfclife.com and click on the banner advertising online insurance

Enter the sum assured

Choose the policy term

Choose the premium paying term

You will see the premium amount based on your inputs

Select your bank to make the premium payment

You will see an acknowledgement on a successful transaction

Within a period of usually three weeks the insurance company will come back to you on whether or not your insurance policy has been approved by its underwriting team

Subject to approval you will receive a soft copy of the policy which will be followed by a hard copy

The mark of a good online experience is fewer clicks and website speed. The lesser number of clicks necessary to buy insurance, the simpler it becomes for users.

And slow website speed with higher response time while navigating to the bank website for premium payment, can be a turn off.